


the same wish is returned

by reptilianraven



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, mona n dirk friendship through the weird and kinda depressing years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 23:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven
Summary: "I don’t really know how to make friends.”The fortune teller opens a flap under Dirk’s fingers. The text reads,just do what you did with me.“Take you with me while I escaped a government prison?” Dirk asks, dutifully folding all the paper back in order before unfolding a flap open anew.smile. be yourself. keep talking.Mona says through the new text.if that doesn’t work do what i did to make you my friend“And what is that, exactly?” Dirk fondly remembers how he met Mona. How he first yelped in shock when he saw a chair shift into scorpion and then watched in awe-horror as that scorpion stood between him and the exit.make sure he doesn’t get away :D-When Dirk escapes Blackwing that first time, he takes Mona with him. Friendship is a little odd when one party refuses to turn into anything human and the other party isDirk, but they make it work.





	the same wish is returned

**Author's Note:**

> so i got super fascinated with mona and dirk’s relationship and wanted to explore a little bit of ‘what if’ and then this fic just kept growing past the intended 2k it was supposed to be

The first days after are soaked in adrenaline and panic and paranoia. He runs, never walks, and always looks over his shoulder. He listens for the telltale sound of hard footfalls, the sound of people who want to take him back. Svlad feels like he’ll shake apart at the seams from terror or maybe from fragile hope he’s too scared to hold for the risk of losing it all over again, but he keeps it together, just barely, to run towards whatever direction the universe tells him to. He finds a road. The road leads to a highway. The highway leads to a kind woman who offers Svlad a ride to the nearest gas station. The gas station leads to a paper bag filled with cash. The cash leads to another ride that Svlad spends with his eyes locked onto the rearview mirror, waiting for them to come crashing back. They don’t, though. The universe feels almost frantic, with how it stretches the distance, the days. Coincidence after coincidence, Svlad follows the pull he still can’t explain and gets taken farther and farther away from wherever Blackwing was. 

It’s only three days later, sitting on the floor of a motel room Svlad managed to get for a few days in return for finding a beloved lost cat, when the pull of the universe finally loosens its grip on his chest. A moment to rest. A moment to breathe. 

And then he remembers. 

“Mona?” Svlad says. He runs a finger over the purple friendship bracelet around his wrist. The threads are frayed. “Mona, are you alright?”

There is no answer. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in a while. I got a bit caught up in trying to—to get away,” Svlad says. Shame pools in his chest, cold. In all the chaos, he forgot to check in on his friend. The last he’d seen of Mona shifting was when she blasted through her cell door as a canon before scurrying towards him as a mouse. She crawled up his leg, down his arm, settled as a bracelet, and he hadn’t thought a single thing but _run_. “I think we’ll be okay here, for a little while. So you can, uh, well. You can be what you want. No need to hide.”

The blinds of the room cut the light from the streetlamp outside. It streams towards floor in bars of orange, painting the silence Svlad is trying to break.

“Mona?”

The bracelet squeezes his wrist for a second. She’s listening, then.

“Mona, are you alright?”

Another squeeze. 

In the silence, he can hear water dripping from the leaky faucet in the bathroom, the sound of cars driving past outside on the road, the sound of his heart beating in his chest, unsure if everything is okay or if this is only just the beginning. He doesn’t hear Mona and now, more than anything, he wants to hear her lilting voice, stark and bright against the backdrop of everything else.

“I, uh. I don’t mean to be rude or pushy or anything,” he says slowly, carefully. “But I would like to talk to you, if that’s okay? It is, of course, also perfectly fine if you don’t want to or-—”

The weight on his wrist disappears with a soft whizz. On his lap, there is now an Etch A Sketch.

“Well, that works,” Svlad smiles, looking down to where the two knobs begin turning on their own. “Hello, Mona.”

_hi svlad_ , Mona spells out. Then she draws a little smiley face. _what’s wrong?_

“Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to know if you were alright.”

_i’m okay_. As Svlad watches Mona’s text unravel into words, the chill he felt under his skin dissipates. He’s missed her and he didn’t even realize. _where are we?_

“A room, that’s well, uh—” Svlad stands, holding Mona out like how he holds cats, showing her the room. He walks to the window, looks at the street, and wonders how far it goes in either direction. “—Somewhere. I don’t really know, actually. But we’re far away from Blackwing now. I think we’ll still have to go much further, but that’s not really up to me.”

He looks back down to Mona. _this is nice._

“The room? I suppose so. I don’t exactly have much reference for the niceness of rooms, but the bed is soft, though there’s only one. The owner gave us this one because he didn’t exactly notice I had company.” Svlad takes a seat on the aforementioned bed, laying Mona down beside him. He pats her screen softly. “Wonderful acting, by the way, these past few days.”

There’s a barrage of smiley faces followed by quick scribble of excited text. _thank you!_

Svlad laughs, and he tries to ignore how foreign the act feels. “We can share the bed. There’s more than enough space.” 

The smiley faces Mona had continued to draw stopped suddenly. The screen erases itself and spells, _it’s okay you can have it_

The knobs turn, one way, another, but nothing gets written. Hesitation. Svlad has never been good at reading people, but through the few, cherished meetings Riggins allowed him with Mona, he slowly learned how to understand her, no matter what form she was in. He can tell. A marble can be excited, a chair can be worried, an Etch a Sketch can be scared.

“There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” Svlad says slowly, watching the knobs turn, as if Mona is shaking her head. “You don’t have to tell me. I just want to know if I can help.”

Words appear on the screen, halting and slow. _i don’t think i want to be a person for a while._

“Oh,” he says. “Why?”

The knobs still. There was one visit, one of Svlad’s favorites, if he had to pick, where Mona had been human the entire time. She wanted to show Svlad her monologing skills and recited with what he assumed was perfect accuracy the last thing she remembered reading. Mona sat him down on the floor of her cell, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to ready herself to speak before launching into the loveliest rendition of a diner menu. This second right now is another second of that bated breath, and Svlad doesn’t need the universe to know that it’s not going to be as good as that visit. 

_bad things happen to me when i’m a person_ , Mona tells him, and Svlad feels the weight of all the years pressing down on them.

Logically, Svlad knows that it’s actually quite warm in the room. He knows Blackwing must be miles away with no hope of catching up to them, so long as Svlad keeps them moving along to the tide of the universe. He knows he isn’t made of paper, that only Mona can do that. In spite of it all, he feels cold, he feels that awful mix of scared and angry and hopeless, he feels like he’s crumpling. 

Svlad isn’t quite sure what his face was doing while all that went through his head, but it has Mona’s text scrambling largely for his attention.

_svlad? i’m sorry i didn’t mean to make you sad._

“Don’t apologize,” he says. Has his voice always sounded this rough? Was it from disuse or from Blackwing wearing him down, wearing both of them down in ways that should never have happened? “It’s not your fault, it’s just—I’m sorry bad things happened to you.”

Her text changes from blocky letters to the haphazard chicken scratch of his own handwriting. _don’t apologize, it’s not your fault._

“You do impressions well in any form,” he croaks out, trying for a smile. He’s nowhere as good as acting as Mona is. 

A slow smiley face appears on the screen. She starts drawing the shaky outline of a rather fat looking cat around it. She’s a lot better at this whole cheering up business. 

“Mona,” Svlad picks her up, looking straight at the screen. He musters up the same kind of confidence she had reciting the prices of breakfasts into his next words. “You don’t ever have to turn into anything you don’t want to be. Never ever _ever_ again. No matter what you are, you’ll always be my friend.”

She doesn’t spell anything for a while. Just when Svlad thinks that maybe she’s fallen asleep, or done whatever is closest to sleep when one is a toy, the screen scribbles out _are you going to be okay?_

Svlad tilts his head. “Me? Why?”

_you’re always a person._

Oddly enough, Svlad doesn’t really feel like one. He feels like skin scraped raw, stinging under the light of the outside sun after years of darkness. He’s more an aftermath than a person, hoping that whatever comes next will be better than what he’s left behind. In all the running, Svlad had forgotten, just for a few scant days, just how many scars he’s taking along with him. 

But that’s something for another day.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Svlad tells her. “I’ll figure it out.”

_good_ , she says. _that’s what detectives are supposed to do._

Svlad smiles, unbidden, and cuddles her into his arms. The hard plastic of the Etch A Sketch turns soft, Mona now a bright blue teddy bear perfect to hug to his heart’s delight. The weight in his chest lifts, now spreading to the rest of his body with the familiar haze of exhaustion.

He places Mona right next to him on the bed, lies down, and waits for sleep to pull him under the same way the universe will pull him to wherever he’ll need to go next.

-

The universe throws Svlad back to London. Not literally, of course, because that sounds like it’d be rather painful. No, it throws him back to London after a particularly nasty hunch that leads him straight to a crime scene, which leads him to a police station, which leads to him learning about the sticky situation concerning his citizenship and his lack of thereof, which boards him onto a plane back to the only place he remembers as home.

Two years after Blackwing, countless blurry years after he left this place in the beginning, and he’s back. When he unboards, he expects some kind of familiarity. Some kind of good feeling because he’s back where he felt, at least for a brief moment in his life before it had careened into a gutter, that he belonged. The feeling doesn’t come. In his mind, a handful of jigsaw pieces are trying to mash themselves into a picture to no avail. Svlad spends a moment frozen somewhere in the airport before his chest feels tight. Not in the ‘universe wants a thing, you know how it is’ type of way, but in the ‘oh god, I have no idea what I’m doing’ type of way.

“Oh god,” Svlad breathes. He’s managed to find a bathroom stall and successfully locked himself into it to have whatever meltdown has been nipping at his heels this time. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He says this so much it might as well be his catchphrase at this point.

A small beetle crawls out of his hoodie pocket and Svlad sighs. 

“Sorry,” he says as Mona crawls into his hand. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m just having a, er, moment of wild panic? But it’s no different than all my other moments of wild panic. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

With a soft buzz, the weight of the beetle changes into a heavier, much less bug-like and much more spherical Magic 8 Ball. Svlad gives her a shake and watches the little triangle float up.

_why?_

“Did you enjoy the flight?” Svlad says instead of answering. He hates that he always does this, letting his mind get ahead of him and seep out in ways that make Mona have to fret over him. The least he could do for his friend is keep it together. “I know you’ve been wanting to see clouds up close for a better character study and all that, so I hope—”

_svlad!_ The Magic 8 Ball vibrates in his grasp. The little triangle floats up through the liquid in a way that can only be described as accusatory. _deflecting!_

“I know.” Something about reading his own name is making the dissonance in his head even worse, and he lets his shoulders slump downwards. Maybe if he looks miserable enough, he could get away with it. “It’s for good reason. I don’t know how to explain any of—” he waves a hand around, gesturing at the general vicinity of everything. “—this.”

_you can try_ , Svlad doesn’t even have to shake her to get a reply. The text on the triangle shifts seamlessly into new words, the face of the little triangle turning when she runs out of space. _the clouds were amazing but i can’t concentrate on my next role if you’re upset._

“I’m not—”

_i want to help_ , Mona says. 

You shouldn’t have to, Svlad doesn’t say. He hates this, but when Mona strikes a cord, she can tell, and she is ever so persistent when she wants to be. He leans back against the cubicle wall and takes a deep breath. He says, “I used to live here. Before.”

_i remember. you told me about London._

“I did, didn’t I?” He tries not to let his memories stray back for too long, always worried that if he thinks about Blackwing too much it might just catch up to him in another way altogether. But the memory of Mona watching him with curious, bright eyes while he told her his overly embellished adventures was well worn with recollection. “It’s odd being back. It’s new but it shouldn’t be.”

_new but not new?_ The text says. The little triangle turns to another side that just has three more question marks. Mona never did well with Svlad’s patented vagueness. Here, under the harsh fluorescent lights, he tries to make sense of the jumble of his thoughts.

“I thought being back would feel good, or familiar, or something. But it doesn’t, it’s all—” Svlad’s grip on the ball tightens. London feels just about familiar as a pair of shoes three sizes too small. It’s familiar in a way that it isn’t, not anymore. It’s familiar like how his name feels less and less like it’s his and more like a heavy, stifling reminder of where he’s been. “—different.”

_you’re different_ , the text floats up through the liquid effortlessly, a distinct contrast from the churning in his gut. He’s trying too hard to push the jigsaw piece into a space it can’t fit into. 

“I am.”

_so things feel different._

“...Perhaps.”

_different isn’t bad._

“When did you get so wise?” Svlad says wryly, only half trying to get Mona to drop it. Turn the piece every which way, and it still doesn’t fit. Different isn’t bad, but it also doesn’t make any _sense_. Sense isn’t something Svlad gets often, or at all, really, and it would be nice, he thinks, to have something not feel jagged and wrong at every edge.

_you can think of it as a new start_. Mona trucks on forwards. _maybe that will make you feel less anxious._

“I’m not anxious,” he huffs. “I’m just-—uneasy with the uncertainty of the future.”

The Magic 8 Ball shifts from curves to the flat, heavy plane of a hardbound dictionary. The dictionary wrenches open in Svlad’s grasp, landing on a page with a section highlighted. He reads and rolls his eyes. _**anxious** : adjective. experiencing worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event of something with an uncertain outcome_.

“Spending all your time with me has made you sarcastic,” Svlad pokes the dictionary in the spine and Mona snaps the cover closed on his thumb for his efforts. “Ack! And mean!”

Her pages flutter playfully, rustling, paper laughter. Svlad tries to not smile. He really, really tries. 

He thuds his head softly against the cubicle wall and stares up at lights. A new start, huh?

“Mona,” he says. “Are you planning on staying a dictionary for a while? I’ve got a thing I want to do and words would be quite useful for it.”

The cover flips open, pages obligingly flipping back to the A’s. Another highlighted section. _**affirmative** : adjective. noun. agreeing with a statement or to a request._

It’s Svlad Cjelli who flips through the pages of a dictionary huddled in a cubicle, hiding from the feeling of different and new and wrong.

But Dirk Gently is the one who leaves the bathroom stall with steps that seem just a little bit more sure.

-

The years pass in the way they usually do; relentless, one after the other, with no mind to what it’s leaving behind or what it’s hurtling towards.

Dirk gets, well, not exactly better at understanding his hunches, but he does do a great job at following them and somehow doing what it wants him to. Instead of stumbling into situations, he strides right into them with the kind of confidence that can only be forged from a life of knowing that whatever will happen is going to happen anyway, so might as well look like he knows what he’s doing in the process. Mona had helped him with his posture, for this. She turned into a wonderfully warm windbreaker that prodded him whenever he felt the old urge to slouch, to make himself look smaller. If he’s going to be wandering around with chaos always a few steps ahead, he’ll have to do it standing tall. 

The universe tosses and hurls him here and there. Dirk ends up at university for a very odd while where he gets a reputation for being, for the lack of a better term, batshit fucking crazy. It’s probably because of a good hearty mix of the billowing trench coat he finds in an alley and begins wearing because he likes the swish it makes, the fact that when he talks to Mona he looks like he’s having an absolutely riveting conversation with himself, and the phase Mona goes through at the same time where she was a bat more often than not, following him around with gleeful flaps of her wings, or clinging to his shoulder as he walked the old halls. He gets a year of sort of interesting but nonetheless boring, _boring_ studying done before the universe declares it’s time to move on and gets him expelled in the most convoluted way possible. Little bit of a relief, that one.

There are cases. Actual, honest to god _cases_ that have nothing to do, or at least minimally have something to do and not centrally focused on, missing cats. There are missing persons, for one. And missing objects of high value. And a whole thing that is probably robots, but Dirk isn’t the type to judge the being-ness of others. And grisly, horrible, awful murders. He likes those the least, but he knows, clear as the strings in his head that the universe plucks and plays, that if he doesn’t do something, nobody will. When he does solve it, those strings play notes with amazing clarity and Dirk can take solace in the fact that he’s doing what he was always made to do.

Mona is not his assistant. They had a little bit of an argument over it, and when Dirk says argument, he means he spends an hour on a park bench whining over semantics at the very petulant set of flashcards in his hands. Mona’s official title is that she’s a holistic actress that just so happens to be travelling with a holistic detective, though their career choices do not hinder the other's. If anything, Mona likes Dirk’s realized calling because it allows her to shift into a myriad of exciting things. Mona usually stays a particular object for long periods of time, preferring not to interfere with Dirk’s business, but when she does shift for his benefit, it’s always a joy to witness.

On one case, she shifts into a hat for him to wear, because hats seem detective-y before very quickly turning into a bulletproof vest to save Dirk’s life. Somewhere north of Amsterdam, Mona turns into a motorcycle and refuses to change to anything else until Dirk learns how to drive her without her help. Mona criticizes how he makes his _entrances_ of all things and turns into a dramatic mist in the middle of a corner store just so Dirk could look cool. He’s pretty sure he just looks like he’s squinting. 

The years pass. The cases come and go like they usually do; sudden, exhilarating, always forward and never back. There are no thank yous, no pats on the back for a job well done. The universe always makes sure to compensate with the world’s most erratic salary patterns, and inside of him, after every case, a clear note that rings out of purpose. Years of his childhood lost to confusion, years after that locked away from the universe, poked and prodded and pried apart, and the years now where things are right, so everything is good, everything is fine, everything is at it should be.

Except it isn’t. Not really. 

Dirk gets older. Mona does too. Whenever the notes in his head play, no matter how clear, they echo, exposing some empty part of him that cannot be filled. The worst part is that he knows exactly what it is, and he hates it. 

He’s lying on the sofa in his flat, Mona a content, purring Siamese cat on his lap. Outside, the sky is on the edge of bleeding towards the gentle glow of dusk. They’ve got nowhere to be. No new case, what with the last one just being three days ago. That case took a week of running around investigating people who very obstinately did not want to be investigated. Dirk is lucky that this case did not end in any injury or too much strenuous physical activity, but the weariness in his bones still persists. There’s something about talking to people, no matter how transient the instance is, that makes him hopeful and tired at the same time. And he knows why. 

The chasm inside of him digs deeper, echoing.

“Mona,” Dirk says. Mona stretches for a few seconds before ambling to his chest, staring at him with bright blue eyes. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Mona places her paw on Dirk’s nose, startling a soft laugh out of him, before she drops on his face as a pager. He squawks, picking her up and looking at the text on the screen.

_it won’t be a secret anymore, but okay_ , Mona says. When Dirk feels the words stall in his throat, the text erases itself and starts typing anew. _is it bad?_

“No, it’s not bad..exactly. Well, it’s not ‘life or death’ bad it’s just ‘bothering me all the time every second’ bad,” he sighs, gaze looking upwards, focusing on the ceiling and the odd stains in odd shapes instead of how nervous he is. Sometimes, when Dirk gets moments of quiet, he feels some kind of masochistic urge to wonder how the things in his life could fall apart. And there are just so many ways, really, but one of the worst is thinking about Mona. Nobody has ever stuck around except her, but is that a certainty or a countdown?

Mona buzzes in his hands. Impatient or worried or maybe a mix of both. He knows her so well that he doesn’t even have to look, but he doesn’t know how she’ll react to this.

Dirk says, “There are—things. That I don’t tell you. And it’s not because I don’t trust you or value you as a friend, in fact, it’s _exactly_ because I value you as my friend so much that I keep things from you.” It’s not specifically what he wanted to say, but it’s closer than he’s ever gotten before.

In response, the text of the pager writes out words slowly like a knowing drawl. _that’s not a secret, dirk._

He smiles, and he knows it must look a little frayed at the edges. A little worn down. “I’m not very good at being subtle about it, aren’t I?” 

_i know you don’t tell me everything_ , Mona says, but it’s her next words that throw Dirk for a loop. _i don’t either. to you._ And before Dirk can pick that apart, Mona steadfastly continues. _and that’s okay. it’s just not okay if it starts hurting._

“And what are we supposed to do when it reaches that point?”

_that’s when you tell somebody._

“We’re the only somebody’s we’ve got.”

Dirk’s flat is by no means large, but when he remembers it’s just the two of them here, when they’re talking like this, it feels cavernous. How fascinating, he thinks, to feel so small even when there’s so much space to not be

_tell me something_ , Mona’s text reads. _something you haven’t told me but is hurting you_.

“Only if you go first,” Dirk says, hoping the sly tone covers up his hesitation. Hoping he doesn’t chicken out if and after Mona actually says something.

_:P_ , Mona texts out. Dirk is just about to call that the end of the discussion, sitting up, ready to walk off from the sofa and the conversation, but then the screen of the pager erases the face and types out, _okay_.

Dirk stops. He holds Mona and waits through the pause to see what she has to say. Slowly, letters are typed and they string into words and into a sentence.

_i wish i had what you have_ , Mona says. 

His chest feels tight all of a sudden, but he stops himself from saying anything, urging Mona to continue. 

_you do all the going around and following the universe but i don’t think i’m connected to the universe. i just turn into anything but i don’t know what i’m supposed to be. i’m lost._

“Oh,” Dirk says, simply because he doesn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know that. The universe, the meddling sod of a feeling that almost never leaves him alone, stays quiet in his head. No hints or hunches here. No answer to why it’s him but not her. “Is there anything I can do to make it easier?”

_i don’t think so,_ Mona says. _does it feel nice? knowing that something is guiding you?_

“Sometimes.” Dirk acquiesces, thinking of strings and sounds and purpose. “Other times, I don’t understand it, and getting dragged around by something that refuses to give me answers, well, it’s a different kind of lost, but a lost all the same. But most times, it’s just—”

The universe pulls a string. Lets it go. A clear, perfect note.

_most times?_

“Most time’s it’s—”

Clearly and perfectly echoing in an empty expanse. He hates it. It’s so easy to feel small. It’s so easy to feel lost. It’s so easy to feel—

_dirk?_

“I feel alone, Mona,” Dirk says before the words can burrow themselves somewhere in the crevices of his thoughts, content to hide away and eat holes into his hypothetical blankets. With one part of it said, the rest comes tumbling out, clumsy in the way only confessions can be. “And I hate it because I’m _not_ alone, you’re right here. You’re always with me, but I still—there’s still something—It’s awful, but I can’t seem to stop it, and I’m sorry.”

_i’m sorry too_ , is what Mona says after a moment. Even in Dirk’s haze of unease, his brows knit in confusion. Mona has nothing to apologize for, so why— _i wish i knew what to be to help_.

A person, Dirk thinks immediately. You could be a person. The second the thought flashes through his mind, he feels sick. Mona doesn’t want to be a person because bad things happen when you’re a person. For Dirk’s entire life thus far, a life that is stubbornly very person-shaped, he hasn’t exactly encountered anything to convince him otherwise. 

He cannot and will not make her turn into what she doesn’t want to be. He hasn’t asked her to shift into anything since their days in Blackwing when her shifting was a game they played under the glaring lights of Mona’s cell, but it’s not a game anymore. It’s who Mona is, and Dirk wants to carve out whatever part of himself isn’t satisfied with that. He wants to find and burn whatever it is about him that has the audacity to still feel lonely when she’s been at his side this entire time. He wants to rip apart whatever is inside of him craves the attention and care of people when he’s had such a dedicated and kind friend with him for years and years. 

But he can’t.

And that’s the problem really.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he runs his thumb over the plastic of the pager. “This is on me.” 

_maybe_ , the pager screen blinks up at him. _we need more friends_.

“You say that like they’re stamps to collect,” Dirk says, desperate to lighten the mood. To his vague surprise, while his gut still churns with a mix of bad feelings he doesn’t want to sift through, the echoing seems—not any less echo-y, no, but it’s as if somebody’s brought a torch down there. He can see the walls. The limits. 

More friends. That’s something he’s never thought of, if only because of its sheer improbability. 

_stamps are nice. friends are nice_ , Mona tells him simply. _as long as i’m your favorite stamp_

“Well, of course.” He might still want to feel less lonely, but if the occasion ever strikes that they do meet more people who don’t walk away after the case is over, Dirk can’t even think of anybody ever replacing Mona’s place in his life. “I don’t think there’s anybody out there who can actually be a stamp, afterall.”

_we should do this more often._

“Do what?”

_tell each other things. the big things that hurt._

“I suppose so.”

It’s getting dark out. Dirk should switch on a light, but he stays where he is. Sitting on his sofa with his best friend, his only friend, in his hands.

_we won’t, though, won’t we_ , the screen reads in the dimness of the room.

“Not as much as we should, no.” Dirk says. She knows him so well, and he knows her just as much. 

Mona shifts back into a cat. A lovely little calico this time. Together, they sit there, things said and unsaid sitting along with them.

-

The Spring case is odd in so many ways, Dirk and Mona actually keep a list of all the odd things about it. Mona provides the pen (i.e. she is the pen) while Dirk scrawls his notes on the backs of receipts he shoves in his bag. First off, he doesn’t find the case so much as it finds him in the form of a wonderful lady named Farah Black. Secondly, Patrick Spring, over what Dirk thinks is the most fraught and intimidating brunch ever, gives him no details save for a location, a date, a time, and an _inordinate_ sum of money before the case even _begins_. Thirdly, when it does begin, there’s this whole mess where Dirk meets himself (?) backed by who other-he describes as his second best friend (!?) and there’s also an entire knight ( _???_ ). It’s all very confusing, but Dirk’s whole thing is rolling with the punches, so he puts on the mask, gets the kitten, and goes to the Ridgely.

“Very quickly, before I go and meet my second best friend,” Dirk says as he’s climbing up the fire escape towards the oh so conveniently open window a few stories above him. “I want you to know that you are my first best friend and that other-me was very specific in delegating this other man as ‘second’.”

Mona the pen snakes out of his pocket as a, well, snake, before nestling into his hands as a folded paper fortune teller. Dirk pauses his arduous climb to open a flap. _it’s okay, i’m not jealous_.

“I never said you were.”

He folds open another flap. _but you were worried about it._

“...And if I was?”

_favorite stamp, remember?_

“Nobody will ever outdo you,” he assures her. Dirk sighs, nervously crinkling a corner of the paper. “I suppose I’m just nervous now. I don’t really know how to make friends.”

The fortune teller opens a flap under Dirk’s fingers. The text reads, _just do what you did with me._

“Take you with me while I escaped a government prison?” Dirk asks, dutifully folding all the paper back in order before unfolding a flap open anew.

_smile. be yourself. keep talking._ Mona says through the new text. _if that doesn’t work do what i did to make you my friend_

“And what is that, exactly?” Dirk fondly remembers how he met Mona. How he first yelped in shock when he saw a chair shift into scorpion and then watched in awe-horror as that scorpion stood between him and the exit.

_make sure he doesn’t get away :D_

Dirk pockets Mona, takes a deep breath, and goes through the window. 

He gets a shoe thrown at his head and himself thrown out of the flat completely. The addition of Mona’s advice works much better, though it takes a few days. Friendships formed outside of a hellhole seem to take a bit longer to develop, but what little he’s seen of Todd convinces him that Todd is worth the effort and more. Todd _and_ Amanda _and_ Farah because this case seems to come with oodles of actual people who continue to talk to Dirk for more than five frustrated minutes.

_all your new friends are so cool!_ Mona, rather attached to being a fortune teller it seems, tells him. Dirk has to put the Everbulb a little closer to be able to read her in the darkness of the secret passage. _i want to meet them_

“Timing is of the essence,” he says. The fortune teller tries to snap at his thumb, but Dirk has long grown accustom to Mona’s inanimate attacks, and skillfully evades. “I’m trying to ease them into to the chaos that is my life, slow and steady. Regular people don’t exactly, well, react very nicely to beings like you and I. Once they’ve acclimated and once I’m sure they wouldn’t bat an eye at your talents, then I’ll introduce you.”

If paper could grumble, Mona next words would do exactly that. She says, _i could help with the case_.

“We’re doing quite fine, you don’t need to worry.”

_i still don’t get why i have to wait_.

“Because I want them to like you. And I want you to like them.” Dirk really wants to make this whole ‘friends, as in multiple friends, plural’ work. He doesn’t know what he’d do if they didn’t all get along. Well, he doesn’t know what he’d do after being very sad about it, that is. “So I’m just...making sure everything is at the best they can be for the most positive results.”

The fortune teller is still for a moment. Pensive. A flap folds open. _you worry too much_

“You argue too much,” Dirk snipes back just as easily, too focused on his comeback dodge his fingers from Mona’s swift paper attack. “Hey!”

“Dirk?” Todd, wonderful, glorious, new friend Todd finally finishes yelling through the ceiling to Farah, poking his head too look at where Dirk stood. “Who are you talking to?”

“Oh, you know,” Dirk pockets Mona as she continues to gnaw on his hand, turning to Todd with a smile. “Just myself and this fantastically dark corridor that we must investigate this instant.”

“What? You were _just_ —nevermind,” Todd shakes his head, squinting into the darkness. It’s very convenient that most of Todd’s sentences begin but do not necessarily end. It makes having to not-explain things much easier for Dirk.

Well, that is until they get trapped in a rather murderous lightroom where the walls are closing in on them in a supremely ‘death is imminent’ sort of manner. While Todd does the _marvelous_ job of punching the walls into a point-ier form, Dirk is reassessing everything he thought about Patrick Spring. The man seemed nice enough, though Dirk thought that anybody who gave him money was nice, but maybe Patrick Spring was the type of person to give huge amounts of money to people, die, then _kill them too._

“Why would Patrick Spring send us here?” Very impressive that Todd can ask questions like that in this kind of situation. The only thing Dirk can think to ask is ‘oh, god, why this???’

“To kill us!”

“Kill...or test! He left the crank to let us in. He wants us to be here.”

“Maybe he’s an awful person, Todd!”

“Maybe he wants to see that we have something that no one else has,” Todd says, managing to be contemplative in the face of impending doom. His face shifts; understanding. “The Everbulb!”

Had Dirk not been scared shitless, he would have said something very encouraging. Alas, all he can do is vibrate uselessly and hope Todd figures the rest of this out before they die.

Determined, Todd pushes into action. “Find an open socket. Now!” 

They both scramble in opposite directions, searching the rapidly shrinking space for a socket, but the walls are closing in too fast.

“I—I can’t,” Dirk says, overwhelmed by the amount of things happening “We need more time, we need—”

Ah. Blast it. Timing can’t be of the essence if the run out of time to the intricate woes of mortality.

“Mona,” Dirk reaches into his pocket and takes out a fortune teller that somehow manages to look smug. “Yes, alright, alright, you win.”

“Dirk, what are you—” Todd looks up from where he’s crouched to the ground, looking for a socket, but his words are cut short when Mona the fortune teller flaps out of his hand like an odd square bird before transforming into a thick metal bar, wedging herself between the walls, halting the room to a stop.

“What the _fuck?_ ” Todd says, looking at Mona with disbelief, jaw hanging open.

“Todd, meet Mona. Mona, Todd. Todd, look, socket,” Dirk pats Todd’s shoulder, pointing at the open socket right in front of his face. “Hurry up, would you, I’m not sure how long she can keep this up.”

“ _She?_ ” Todd hisses, but the perilous sound of the room screeching around them snaps him back to the much pressing matter at hand. 

Todd is a fantastic assistant, Dirk thinks. He’s lying on the ground, Todd right next to him, panting with adrenaline, both of them are miraculously still person-shaped and not burnt pancake-shaped and dead. 

“Nicely done, Todd,” Dirk sits up.

“What,” Todd is staring at Dirk. Or more accurately, he’s staring at the little hamster sitting on Dirk’s chest. “Is that.”

“Really, Todd, I just introduced you moments ago,” he sniffs. Now that things have calmed considerably, Dirk’s worry comes back. He takes Mona in his hands protectively while Mona, pokes her head past Dirk’s thumb, glaring at Todd. He hopes he doesn’t look nervous. Nothing to be nervous about. Just his first and second best friends meeting each other, that’s all. “Near death experience aside, you should really pay attention.” He holds Mona out for Todd. “This is Mona. She’s my first best friend.”

“Oh, uh,” Todd says, eyes darting between Dirk and Mona, perhaps reading some sort of vibe in the air that urges him to be polite and not, say, throw whatever is closest at the head upon meeting somebody new. “Hello?”

Mona looks at Todd and twitches her nose decisively. She scuttles down his arm back into his pocket, flattening back into paper.

Dirk doesn’t know what _that_ is supposed to mean, but he smiles at Todd, “I think that means she likes you. Or tolerates you. Both pretty good, as first impressions go.”

“You know what,” Todd takes a deep breath and stands up, looking around the horrible cavern of doom. “Plenty of time to unpack this when we get out of here.”

“Wait, Todd—”

“Come on, I’m getting out of here whether the Spring family likes it or not.” Todd trudges forward, walking as if he’ll get things done out of pure spite alone.

Feeling a bit ill-equipped with the general amount of everything going on, Dirk takes Mona out, unfolds a flap, and reads whatever wisdom she has to offer.

_you should follow him_ , her scrawl reads amicably. _he looks like he knows what he’s doing_.

“Oh, alright.” He sighs.

She opens another flap out in his hands. _he seems to know what he’s doing a lot better than you do._

“Now that’s just rude.”

“Dirk!” Todd calls.

“Coming!” 

Dirk follows Todd deeper into the maze, and decides that what Todd said is pretty good for now. Plenty of time to unpack all of this later.

-

Of course, unpacking means answering questions and answering questions with the kind of responses people want has never been Dirk’s strong suit. He’s good at giving wrong answers, or right answers that still make people upset, or answers that are actually questions that lead everybody further and further away from whatever it is they wanted from Dirk in the first place, but never answers people want to hear. Overall, it’s just much easier to not answer in the first place, and he tries to quash the slowly mounting guilt of hiding things from Todd. Answers ruin things, and he doesn’t want to ruin this.

Dirk drives down a road that cuts through the towering evergreens towards where Patrick Spring’s map wants them to be. Conversation with Todd is slowly becoming easier. Companionable. Dirk kind of never wants to stop.

From the back of the car, a soft meow.

“What was that?” Todd asks, eyebrows scrunched. 

“Oh, uh.” That was the kitten. The crime scene kitten. The kitten that Todd nearly punched him for having. Dirk _had_ to take it with them, but he and Todd are doing so well and he doesn’t want that to end yet. So Dirk says, “Er, Mona. That was Mona.”

Mona, showing Dirk just why she’s his first best friend, surreptitiously leaves his pocket as a small curl of wind, slipping to the back of the car. She leaps out as an orange tabby, much to Todd’s surprise if his squawk is anything to go by. Mona settles in Todd’s lap, and Dirk can’t stop himself from smiling.

“Oh. Okay. Cool,” Todd holds his hands in the air as if somebody is holding him at gunpoint. In his lap, Mona makes herself comfortable, flexing her claws into the fabric of Todd’s jeans. “Uh.”

“You can pet her. She quite likes, well, anything that is appropriate to whatever object she is.”

“Alright. Okay,” Todd puts his hands down slowly, settling one onto Mona’s head as if she were a grenade. To be fair, Mona can be that, but Dirk figures Todd wouldn’t want to know that right now. “Is it rude if I ask what, uh, she is? Or—” he looks at Mona. “Do I talk to you directly? What you...are?”

“She doesn’t talk, per se, but when she does want to communicate, she’ll turn into something that’ll make that possible. Now, she’s just enjoying the drive,” Dirk tells him. “Mona is a holistic actress.”

“Right,” Todd says, drawing out the vowel. “And that means?”

“She can do any role,” he grins, endlessly proud of Mona’s skill and happy to brag about it to somebody. “Well, any role that she’s seen before. Hard to act as something if you’ve never had any time to study the part.”

“You know what, after everything that’s happened, that actually makes a lot of sense.” Todd does that thing with his face that Dirk has learned to mean that he wants to smile but, for some ridiculous reason, is trying rather hard not to. “So you guys are, what...colleagues?”

“Friends. She’s my oldest friend. Nobody has ever stuck around except for her,” Dirk says. “And you.”

“That’s...nice,” is what Todd settles for after a beat of silence. “Doing all this on your own all the time seems kinda, well. Lonely.”

“It still is, sometimes,” he says, going for flippant. Mona looks at him, eyes knowing. “Can’t really figure out why. It’s not as if I’m actually on my own.”

“You can still be lonely, you know,” Todd says. “Even when you have somebody.” 

“You can?”

“Yeah.” It’s one word. One simple word, but heavy with the weight of experience. 

“Oh,” Dirk says. The space inside him, echoing, echoing, but there’s another torch now.

Some more light, and maybe that space won’t feel so large anymore. Maybe he won’t feel the space at all.

Todd looks out the window, watching the slow blur of trees pass by. Dirk sees his hand absentmindedly begin to scratch Mona on the head, Mona’s tail winding back and forth with contentment.

“She likes you.”

“Really?” Todd says. To Dirk’s pleasant surprise, he tilts his head to talk at Mona instead of him. “You do?” 

In reply, Mona lets out a soft mew.

Dirk needn’t tell him that that means yes.

From the back, the kitten shark lets out a soft meow and Mona dutifully meows louder. In the corner of his eye, Dirk sees Todd smile softly down at Mona.

For once in his life, Dirk keeps his eyes on the road just so that his own smile isn’t as obvious. His first best friend and second best friend are getting along. Dirk’s chest feels all bright and soft like the few times he wakes before the sun is up, free to lay in the warmth of sleep and watch the light stream in. Nothing, he thinks, could ruin this feeling.

-

Dirk should really know by that point that he should never ever _ever_ jinx anything. The universe is vast and brutal and unforgiving, and he has to push forward and handle it.

Dirk can sort of handle a lot of things, if the definition of ‘handle’ means ‘things are not ideal but I shall, technically, survive’. His chaotic lifestyle demands this of him. So he handles it when he nearly gets killed by someone who sounds like a cement mixer. He handles it when Farah is knocked out and he gets the second gun of the day pointed at him. He handles it when he and Todd travel to the _past_ and they run through chaos that had already happened. He handles it, and he’s surviving.

But now is something different altogether. Todd is walking away from him, the air still heavy with the words he’d hissed out at Dirk, with the words Dirk lashed out with himself. Dirk’s own are eyes stinging with tears he refuses to shed. Dirk’s chest feels tight and cold in the worst way possible. But this is fine. He can handle this. He feels like he’s breaking apart, but he can handle this, just like he handles everything, because he always, _always_ has to keep going and—

Something in his pocket is buzzes. It buzzes again. 

Dirk pulls out an old Nokia mobile from his pocket, text already typing its way across the screen.

_do you want me to eat him?_ Mona says. She’s trying to cheer him up, just like she always does. He blinks a few times, trying to will away the stinging. For a moment, he tries to smile, but he doesn’t have the heart to do it. 

“No,” Dirk takes a deep breath. “He’s right after all.”

_he isn’t. you aren’t a monster._

Dirk is seeing her words but different ones are echoing in his mind. You ruined my life, just to have another friend, Todd said. How much of those words were lashed out in anger, and how much of it is true, Dirk wonders. 

Mona buzzes in his hand. _dirk. i mean it_

“It’s fine,” he says. “We can talk later. There’s still—things. Things to do, case to solve. It’s fine.”

It’s perfectly fine. 

-

After everything, Dirk wakes up. 

He always does. 

The room is empty and irritatingly white. Sterile. He’s never liked hospitals, but he supposes he’d dislike dying a bit more, so in some weird way, it should be a relief. 

Slowly, the events drip back into his mind. Solving the case, saving Lydia Spring, sending the time machine back. His shoulder twinges with the memory of two arrows, but it’s thankfully muddled on whatever painkillers they’ve got him on. All is well, things were put to how they were supposed to be, and there, in his mind, a pat on the back from the universe for getting the job done. A clear note ringing out, echoing and—

The room is empty. 

A paper crane sitting atop the table next to his bed unfolds into a flat piece of paper, floating towards his hands. Dirk picks her up, straining to read the text.

_riggins was here_ , she says.

“What?” Dirk stomach sinks. “Why? What did he want this time?”

_nothing._ Mona’s slow scrawl looks as confused as he feels. _do you want to know what he said?_

“No,” he says. “No, I don’t.”

Mona shifts into a stuffed bear in Dirk’s hands, and Dirk sighs, hugging her to his chest. Just like old times, he thinks. The two of them together in an empty room with the past nipping at their heels, with only each other to hold. 

-

The hospital lets Dirk stay for a few days before he’s unceremoniously wheeled out.. The sky is clear, the sun is shining, Dirk is standing awkwardly as he always does when the pull of the universe loosens after he’s finished the last thing he was sent to do. A moment of rest. A moment to breathe. 

“Oh, well,” he says. “Here we are again.”

“Where?” 

Dirk turns, puzzled, to see Todd standing just a few feet away. 

“Todd. You’re...here,” Dirk says, for the lack of anything else to say but the tangible fact of the matter. This is odd. This is weird. This doesn’t make any sense at all. “But the case is over.”

Todd shrugs. He looks, well. Awful. The bruise on his face is starting to heal, but his eyes are red and tired. He says, rather awkwardly, “How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s terrible, actually.” Dirk tells him. “I don’t understand. Did you want something from me—or—”

Todd slips off the bag he had over his shoulder, zipping it open, and pulling out, of all things Dirk’s jacket. Dirk stares, unsure what to do, unsure what is happening. He wonders briefly if the case isn’t over, if there’s still a loose end that needs to be cleaned up, but the universe is silent. This isn’t a case, then. This is all Todd.

Todd reaches to hand Dirk the jacket, but out of Dirk’s hoodie sleeve, Mona slips out, a rattlesnake, fangs bared and hissing. Dirk takes the jacket with his non-hissing sleeve, unable to stop his own sheepish smile at how Todd raises his hands up, held at snakepoint. 

“Hi, Mona. Uh—”

“She gets a bit protective after I stumble into injuries,” he tells Todd apologetically. 

“Makes sense. I just wanted to—I got that from your apartment. And—” Todd struggles for words the same way Dirk is struggling to understand any part of this situation. From the bag, he pulls out a shirt, passes it to Dirk carefully. “It’s a Mexican Funeral t-shirt. I don’t have many left, so try not to get shot in it.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but—” Dirk holds the shirt, confusion mounting higher and higher, but something new is mixed in. Something bright but hesitant. If Dirk holds on too tight, if he gives the brightness a name, it might just crumble. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

“I’m here because I’m your friend.” Todd says.

Dirk can’t help it. Hope. It’s hope he’s feeling, and he never wants to have a moment without it. 

Before Dirk can say something completely ridiculous in the face of all this, he feels Mona slither down his arm, his leg. She darts through the space between him and Todd and wraps herself around Todd’s ankle, tail rattling in warning, fangs bared.

“Mona!” Dirk tries to sound scolding or scandalized, but it’s a losing battle. His head is a giddy little echo chamber of _because I’m your friend._

Todd goes absolutely still, looking down nervously. “Yeah, no, I—I get it”

“Protective,” Dirk says. “She’s rather cross with you.” 

“I figured,” Todd says, darting his gaze back up to Dirk, hesitant. “Are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Mad at me. I wouldn’t mind if you were. I mean, I would mind, but I’d understand. I—I said a lot of things, and I can’t take them back. Can’t change the past,” he laughs humorlessly. “But I want—If you’ll let me I’ll—” Todd sighs. “None of this is coming out right.”

It doesn’t have to, Dirk thinks. Todd is here and his words are clumsy, but Dirk knows how clumsy things can be when one is trying to say something too large to fit in a sentence. Todd is here, Todd gave Dirk his jacket, Todd gave Dirk one of his own shirts, Todd is continuing to talk to Dirk in spite of the threat of mortality coiled around his leg. Dirk has spent his whole life reading between the lines of his first best friend, that learning to the second is—it’s not any easier. It’s different. 

It’s a new start. 

Dirk smiles wryly, “It sure looks like it.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re a bit of a dick?” Todd says, the nervousness gone now. 

“No, but I admire the gall to do so when you have a venomous reptile so close to your person.” 

Todd looks down once again. “Hi, Mona. I—”

Mona doesn’t wait for Todd to finish his sentence. She glares at him, snaps her jaw rather menacingly, much too close for either Dirk of Todd’s comfort, but unwinds. She slithers back up to Dirk, settling in his hood with her head resting on his shoulder.

“Pretty sure that means she doesn’t like me anymore.”

“Probably,” Dirk concedes. “Don’t worry, you two can work on it.” It isn’t ideal. It isn’t what Dirk really wanted, for Todd and Mona to get along perfectly, but the mere promise of more time to get better is more than anything he’s ever encountered before. 

Todd simply nods, not frowning or smiling, perhaps just accepting that one has to move forward. “Come on.” He says.

“Where are we going?”

“Farah wants to meet up,” Todd tells him. That flash of hesitation comes back, but only for a split second. “I mean, if you want to.”

“You know, I think I do.” Dirk grins, but over his shoulder, Mona hisses. He holds a finger up. “Actually, can you give us a moment?”

“Sure.” 

Dirk takes a few steps in the opposite direction, keeping Todd in the corner of his vision. The writhing snake in his hood changes shape and stops moving and Dirk has to maneuver his good arm around to reach back and pull the Nokia mobile out, screen already texting one simple sentence.

_he hurt you_.

“He did,” Dirk says, because he won’t deny that, especially not to Mona. “But I hurt him too. And I know you don’t like him, that much is obvious, and I won’t force you to, so long as you don’t actually bite him but—I want—”

_i know_ , Mona types. _you two make each other better_

“You think?”

_yes. i don’t like him but i like how he makes you happy._

“And what about you?” Dirk asks.. “What will make you happy?”

_i don’t know yet._ Her text slows, pondering. Dirk wonders how long she’s thought about this. If she feels any less lost than she confessed to feeling years ago. _but when i do, i’ll tell you_

“Good,” he says. He hopes she finds her answer just as he found a possibility of his. “That’s good.”

_don’t just stand around here talking to a phone_. She buzzes in his hand incessantly, the closest she can get to those days when they were both children, those days when she would poke Dirk in the stomach over and over just to hear him laugh. _your people friends are waiting_.

“Well, they’ll have to get used to me being late,” Dirk grins. “My favorite stamp friend has the tendency to make me lose track of time.”

Mona buzzes one final time before flattening into a small stamp. He can’t hug her like this, so he settles for patting her softly before pocketing her, hoping she’ll understand just how much this all means to him. Knowing, that after all this time, she must. 

The universe does not pull or push him in this moment, leaving Dirk free to feel everything for himself. No notes or echoes. No hints to what to do next, what’s right or wrong. Just Dirk choosing his own moves, choosing to turn, to catch Todd’s gaze, and to walks towards him and whatever is in store for all of them next.

**Author's Note:**

> yes the rest of s1e8 does not have good things in store for dirk and i _could_ have gone all the way through those last minutes, but that would mean going for another 9k but in mona pov where dirk leaves mona at the diner table bc hunch and farah, todd, and mona (who is still iffy with todd) spend 2 months together looking for dirk. BUT i needed this fic to END jhksjf. maybe i’ll come back and write it. Maybe…
> 
> because i conceptualized this fic while studying for a philosophy final, the title is from, of all fuckin places, Aristotle. "To a friend, however, it is said, you must wish goods for his own sake. If you wish good things in this way, but the same wish is not returned by the other, you would be said to have [only] goodwill for the other. For friendship is said to be reciprocated goodwill."
> 
> im [actualbird](http://actualbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. thanks for reading :D


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